The doctor couple, accused of locking up their minor maid at home in Dwarka and leaving for Thailand on holiday, had returned on March 30, hours before an FIR was filed against them.

The police said that the couple got to know about the maid’s rescue when they were taking the flight from
Bangkok.

Fearing arrest, Dr Sanjay and Sumita Verma went to a relative’s house in Rohini, instead of their residence in Dwarka Sector 6.

The police had informed the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) on Sunday but it reverted only on Tuesday evening, saying the couple had come to India on Friday afternoon.

“After getting details from the airport that the couple had come on Friday at 3pm, we formed several teams and sent them to locations where Vermas’ relatives stay. In the past five days, the couple had changed their location frequently and shuffled between Rohini and Rajouri Garden. Sanjay’s elder brother lives in Rajouri Garden. When we nabbed the couple, they were going towards his house,” a senior police officer, requesting anonymity said.

The couple denied that they ever tortured the 13-year-old domestic help.

“The couple wanted to leave her at their relatives place in Vikaspuri but she insisted on staying back. Since she had backed out at last moment, the couple had no option but to leave her there. She was given the key to the house,” Dr Sandeep Verma, Sanjay’s elder brother said.

After taking the couple into custody, the police took information about the placement agency from where they had hired the 13-year-old girl.

“We raided the Punjabi Bagh placement agency and identified the owner. He will be arrested soon to investigate the trafficking angle,” the officer added.

The couple had claimed that the phone and the intercom were available to the girl.

“We will produce the call records as the couple used to talk to her every day from Bangkok,” their lawyer Shailendra Bhardwaj said.

The Vermas own a nursing home in Dwarka’s Sector 19 and a clinic in Tilak Nagar. Dr Sanjay Verma is a diabetologist and his wife a gynaecologist.